Who Will Pay To Fix That Bridge In Ohio?

The Brent Spence Bridge (the span on the far right) is one of 1,863 highway bridges determined to be structurally deficient by the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Tana Weingartner
/ WVXU

The gun-metal colored bridge spanning the Ohio River opened almost a half century ago with an 85,000 vehicle per day capacity. Today it carries nearly twice that and is rated functionally obsolete by the National Bridge Inventory.

As part of his jobs creation plan, President Obama will be making a trip to a bridge next week. You may not have heard of it, but the chances are you own a lot of things that have been across it. It's one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.

Obama mentioned the bridge in his recent speech to Congress as an example of the type of infrastructure project his jobs plan could fund. It probably doesn't hurt that the bridge lies just outside the Cincinnati congressional district of House Speaker John Boehner — and it runs to Kentucky, home to Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Jenny Bass crosses the bridge on her way to and from work and notices that traffic in the other direction is always stalled.

"When I'm heading to work in the morning I'm going south and coming home I'm going north so the traffic is usually in the opposite direction," Bass said.

Mark Policinski, the executive director of the Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments, said Bass isn't exaggerating. He said the bridge isn't structurally obsolete, it just doesn't function. Traffic regularly backs up an average of three miles per day on each side of the river.

The double-decker bridge carries two interstates, including I-75, which stretches from Michigan to Florida. Policinski said replacing the bridge isn't just a local problem.

"Over 2,000 miles of that trade corridor crosses this little rusted ribbon of bridge across the Ohio River and unless this bridge is augmented in some way not only is it going to cause congestion and more air pollution, but it's going to have a dramatic impact on this country's ability to move goods north to south, particularly east of the Mississippi," he said.

In fact, Policinski said, three percent of the nation's gross domestic product crosses the Brent Spence each year. The route is only expected to get busier as the expanded Panama Canal pumps even more freight along the corridor.

"It is a bridge that is a bridge to everywhere," Policinski said.

In the 1980s, safety shoulders were removed to increase capacity. Mere inches separate the outside lanes from the edge of the bridge. Even a small accident can snarl traffic for hours.

Commuter Alice Pope says crossing the Brent Spence makes her anxious.

"If I broke down, there's nowhere to go, and if I'm in the middle of the lane, what happens?" Pope asked. "I sort of have this weird fear that a truck's going to smash into my Mini and I'm going to go into the Ohio."

Her concerns aren't unfounded. Just a few months ago a man died after being knocked over the side of the bridge. He'd run out of gas and was standing on the bridge when a crash pushed him over the rail.

Stefan Spinosa, the Brent Spence project manager for the Ohio Department of Transportation, said reconfiguring the bridge corridor carries an estimated price tag of nearly $2.4 billion. There's bipartisan support for expanding the bridge but no one knows where the money will come from.

"Whether it's federal government, whether it's the state motor fuel taxes, that's still up in the air," Spinosa said. "The president's job bill could have an impact, I don't know."

Even if Congress comes up with most of the money, states on either side of the bridge must find the rest of the money and officials in Kentucky and Ohio say it won't be easy to make that happen.